2016 – Thursday

Respect your data – give & get credit

Data are becoming valued scholarly products instead of a byproduct of the research process. Federal funding agencies and publishers are encouraging, and sometimes requiring, researchers to share data that have been created with public funds. The benefit to researchers is that sharing your data can increase the impact of your work, lead to new collaborations or projects, enables verification of your published results, provides credit to you as the creator, and provides great resources for education and training. Data sharing also benefits the greater scientific community, funders,the public by encouraging scientific inquiry and debate, increases transparency, reduces the cost of duplicating data, and enables informed public policy.

There are many ways to comply with these requirements – talk to your local librarian to figure out how, where, and when to share your data.

GOOD PRACTICE

Deposit your data in a subject or institutional repository so your colleagues can find and use it.

Deposit your data in your institution’s repository to enable long term preservation.

License your data so people know what they can do with it.

Tell people how to cite your data.

When choosing a repository, ask about the support for tracking its use. Do they provide a handle or DOI? Can you see how many views and downloads? Is it indexed by Google, Google Scholar, the Data Citation Index?

Tell Us

How was the deposit process? Easier or harder than you expected?
What do you need to do before you can share your data?
What do you like or dislike about the repository?
Are people sharing data that is similar to yours?